69249454-chandler-semiotics

TEXTUAL INTERACTIONS 183
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The philosophical concept of a universe of discourse (found also in
Peirce) refers to a frame of reference shared by participants in an
act of communication. ‘Linguistics is likely to explore all possible
problems of relation between discourse and the “universe of
discourse”: what of this universe is verbalized by a given discourse
and how it is verbalized’ (Jakobson 1960, 351). Later he ventured
further, noting that ‘the sometimes equivalent term “context” means
not only the verbalized context but also the partly or nonverbalized
context’ (Jakobson 1973, 319). By 1972 he felt able to issue a
unequivocal declaration on this issue:
Fourteen years ago [1958], Quine [the American philosopher]
and I agreed diplomatically that the signified (signatum)
belonged to linguistics and the referent (designatum) to logic.
Now I think that the referent also belongs to linguistics . . . This
does not mean to linguistics only, but it has a linguistic aspect,
namely, what we call contextual meaning. The general meaning
belongs to semantics; the contextual meaning, given by the
whole context, by the universe of discourse, is also a linguistic
fact.
(Jakobson 1973, 320)
Elsewhere, he was even more explicit – adding that contextual
meaning included situational meanings (Jakobson 1972, 44). In
definitively including context as well as code, Jakobson’s model
moves beyond the original Saussurean framework, which ‘bracketed’
any referential context outside the sign-system itself. It also supports
not only the symbolic mode featured in both the Saussurean and
the Peircean models but also the referential character of Peirce’s
iconic and indexical modes. However problematic Jakobson’s model
of the sign may be regarded as being, his model of communication
constitutes a conceptual bridge between the two major semiotic traditions.
While the determination of meaning in the Saussurean model
depends upon the system of relations within a code and in the
Peircean model upon a referential context, only the Jakobsonian
model provides for both.